- 1837: Born in Hegins, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, of which his grandfather (William B. Otto, 1761-1841) was one of the early pioneers.
- 1863: Was a private in the volunteer 173rd Pennsylvania Regiment, Company F, during the Civil War. The regiment participated in the pursuit of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, from July 12-24, following the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
- 1869: Living in Hazleton when my great-grandfather, John Algernon Otto (1869-1963), is born.
- 1887: Living and working as a plasterer in Hazleton
- Sometime in the 1890s: Family moved to Allentown
- Late 1901: Family moved to Easton, where he was buried in 1906
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
John Bressler Otto, plasterer
Monday, June 30, 2025
Oddball movie connections
Saturday, June 28, 2025
"Famous Chicken Inn" menu from 1939 New York World's Fair
- Renault champagne cocktail, 35 cents
- Individual bottle of Renault sauterne or brandy, 50 cents
- Chicken soup with noodles, 15 cents
- Chicken liver with onions (or mushrooms), 50 cents
- Tomato juice, 15 cents
- Ham sandwich, 20 cents
- French fries, 15 cents
- Chicken platter (cold), 75 cents
- Plain cake, 10 cents
- Ice cream, 15 cents
- Coffee with cream, 10 cents (though a red stamp in the margins indicates "iced tea or coffee, 15 cents")
- Edelbrau & Goldenrod beer on draught, 10 cents
- Fried filet of sole, tartar sauce, carrots and peas, mashed potatoes
- Beef paprika goulash, spaghetti
- Macaroni and ham au gratin, string beans
- Creamed chicken and mushrooms, string beans, mashed potatos
- Chopped tenderloin steak, smothered with onions, carrots and peas, mashed pot.
- Chicken chow mein, rice and noodles
- Chicken giblets, mashed potatos, carrots and peas
- Spaghetti and meat balls
- Vegetable dinner
- Famous chicken salad
- Ham and potatoe salad
- Old postcard: "The World's Most Famous Chicken Dish"
- Swift's Premium, Meat power and two fried chicken recipes
- Celebrate Papergreat's 400th post with a gallery of chickens
- Celebrating Papergreat's 600th post with chickens, past and present
- Mystery RPPC: Feeding chickens
- Mystery RPPC: Feeding chickens (Chapter 2)
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Excommunicated! A family story (maybe) about Communion cups
Me: 1970-present
Dad: John Alan Otto, 1947-present
Dad's father (my Pappy): John Alexander Otto (1911-1991)
Dad's grandfather: John Algernon Otto (1869-1963)
Dad's great-grandfather: John Bressler Otto (1837-1906)
It's John Bressler Otto we're going to discuss today. He's my great-great-grandfather and Ashar's great-great-great-grandfather. He's pictured at right in a photo that was posted on Find A Grave by Jim Neely. He was married to Margaret Alice English Otto (1839-1925), and, based on what I pieced together from multiple sources, they had at least seven children, though I'm not fully confident in the accuracy of this list: Charles Percy Otto; John Algernon Otto (1869-1963); Amy E. Otto (1874-1946); Florence Emily Otto (1864-1934); Alice May Otto (1877-1902, died of consumption); Horace Otto; and William Warren Otto (1879-1922).We know that John Bressler Otto was a plasterer by trade, according to his death certificate. And we know that he was a private in the volunteer 173rd Pennsylvania Regiment, Company F, during the Civil War. The regiment participated in the pursuit of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, from July 12-24, following the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
Many decades later, John Bressler Otto was excommunicated from his church.
Maybe!
This is where it becomes a mystery.
When I started this tangled thread of research more than a year ago, I discovered this short article about "John B. Otto" on Page 8 of the February 16, 1903, edition of the Allentown (Pennsylvania) Daily Leader.
Monday, June 23, 2025
Hans Holzer's "How to Cope with Problems"
- Title: How to Cope with Problems
- Additional cover text: "Stop being a victim! Take charge of your life!"
- Author: Hans Holzer (1920-2009)
- Publisher: Pyramid (A3659)
- Publication date: November 1976
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 205
- Cover price: $1.50
- What problems are addressed? (Deep breath) Accidents, aging process, alcoholism, allergies, animals, attackers and interlopers, attention, children, confinement, criminal tendencies, criticism, death, delays, dietary problems, divorce, doubts, drugs, embarrassment, extravagance, failure, fame and infamy, fashions and clothes, fears, financial problems, foreign languages, fraud, gambling, generation problems, guilt feelings, hostility, household drudgery, inferiority complexes, illness, jealousy, job problems, love & loneliness & marriage problems & rejection & sex problems (all lumped together under "Love"), melancholia and depressions, personality changes, prejudices, psychic experiences, responsibility, shyness, sleeplessness and smoking.
- Is there a chapter on coping with presidents? Not specifically.
- Dedication: "To my many friends, that they may rarely need this book, and to my few enemies, that they may profit from it."
- Excerpt from Chapter I: "Presumably, in the Garden of Eden problems as we understand the word today did not exist. That is, until the well known incident with the apple and the serpent. In a problem-free world, there exists neither stress nor turmoil."
- Holzer on coping with animals: "Domestic animals ... not only need care in feeding, they need love and understanding of their needs on all levels. Animals may not be able to to express themselves elaborately through speech, but they are possessed of basic instincts which tell them pretty much the same things a sentence of speech conveys. If you feel love toward them, they can sense it, if they reject them, they know that, too."
- Holzer on coping with household drudgery: "If you still feel frustrated and angry at having to perform your household duties, look at them not as drudges but as your contribution toward the whole family. As you clean the floors of your home, remind yourself that it is your home, which contains so much of your personality, so much that you have contributed in terms of decoration, in terms of your own emotions."
- Holzer on coping with death: "But as the legend of 'Death in Samara' teaches, there is no escape from death, so we might as well not worry about it. If death is to find the individual at any given moment, he will find him whether he is on the ground or in the air, standing on a ladder or walking down the street."
- Reviews: None, really. I don't think Holzer's books were as popular when they weren't about ghosts, witches or other supernatural stuff. But he could definitely churn them out, especially in the 1970s, and publishers seemed willing to publish them on his name value alone. Most of his advice in the book is practical and commonsense, but I don't think his readers were looking for him to be Dear Abby.
Sunday, June 22, 2025
From the readers: The Golden Institute, 'Bridge Babies' and more
Let's take our minds off the rapidly unfolding events in the Middle East for a few minutes with a roundup of recent reader comments...
Ads from a 1983 Marvel comic: RJSMACHINE writes: "Just came across this ad in a reread of New Mutants 3 from 1983. Don't know why it stood out but, yep, I too was curious about The Golden Institute. My search led me here. That's it, lol."
And Dustin adds: "I was also led here by an ad in a 1983 Hercules comic book I just received."
All roads from 1983 comics lead to The Golden Institute ... and Papergreat. But the answers may remain forever a mystery. I did a new search and didn't come up with anything about the $4 cures for loneliness, either.
1938 receipt from Albert Brothers Steam Bakery: Nancy Hayes writes: "Actually, the founder of Albert Brothers was my grandfather, Stanley Albert. He and his brother Henry founded the business. Stanley Albert died in the early 1960s. His wife was Gertrude Albert, nee Steiner, and they lived across the street from the bakery on Railroad Avenue."
Thanks for sharing this information, Nancy! We now have a more complete and accurate record of the history.
Saturday's postcard: Ginza Tokyu Hotel: Anonymous writes: "When I was a kid, we did the 'round the world' trip and, while in Tokyo, stayed in this hotel. I remember that we stayed in the 'Western-style rooms,' but there were 'Japanese style rooms' also. I remember it was very close to the Kabuki theater."It's definitely an unforgettable book cover!
That's so nice of you to say! Thank you. I hope I can continue posting for a long time, too.
Friday, June 20, 2025
It's been a looooong work week, so here are some Setsuko Hara photos
I haven't even had a chance to think about wrangling up an ephemera post yet this week, which was week #2 of a fortnight of holding down the fort while my boss was on vacation.
So here's something delightful that I stumbled upon. I was made aware for the first time of a 1948 Japanese film titled Taifuken no onna (The Woman in the Typhoon Area), in which Setsuko Hara, Japan's cinema sweetheart, plays the villain. What?!? It's described very loosely as a Japanese version of Key Largo, which came out the same year. I don't want to know anything more about it, because I'll be watching it soon enough. But here are some photos of Hara in Taifuken no onna from the outstanding blog Japan on Film, which also reviews the obscure movie.
Bonus: Here's a shelfie this week I took as part of a work project. The final version ended up being much better and way less cluttered.